Food is central to our everyday lives, yet
ordinary people have virtually no control over its production and distribution.
The food industry is dominated by multinational companies who for their
own profits exploit consumers, workers, the world's natural resources
and billions of farmed animals. The way we eat, and even the way we think
about food is being manipulated by these powerful institutions and their
sophisticated marketing campaigns.

In the 1980s, to expose the reality behind
such propaganda, London Greenpeace began campaigning against the expanding
fast food industry, in particular the McDonald's Corporation - one of
the most powerful, influential and well-known global companies. McDonald’s
was chosen as a perfect symbol of what capitalism in general is doing
to our lives, our society and our planet.

The 17th annual Worldwide Anti-McDonald's Day
was on Tuesday October 16th [UN World Food Day] - a protest against the
promotion of junk food, the unethical targeting of children, exploitation
of workers, animal cruelty, damage to the environment and the global domination
of corporations over our lives. In October 2001, as always there were
local protests all around the globe. [In 1999 we monitored where the protests
took place - we heard of 425 protests and pickets in 345 towns in 23 countries:
Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, England, Finland, France,
Germany, Ireland, Italy, Malta, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal,
Romania, Scotland, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, USA].

Over 3 million anti-McDonald’s leaflets [see
box on next page] have now been handed out in the UK alone since 1990
(when the McDonald's Corporation served libel writs aiming to suppress
the London Greenpeace leafletting campaign) and they are now distributed
worldwide in over 27 languages.

Despite its strenuous efforts, McDonald's is
widely despised, and its 'reputation' - along with that of the food industry
in general - continues to sink ever further.

As well as the mass distribution of leaflets
by thousands of local activists around the world, the global campaign
against McDonald's has continued to grow over the last couple of years:

- many determined
residents' campaigns against new stores, including a successful
552-day occupation of a proposed McDonald's site by residents of Hinchley
Wood, S.E. England

- McDonald’s increasingly identified by a wide
range of protestors worldwide as a symbol
of modern capitalism. This is no co-incidence - the uncompromising
and autonomous but co-ordinated international protests for over 15
years by grass roots anti-McDonald’s campaigners around the world, including
the McLibel Support Campaign, has clearly been an influence in the
development of the modern anti-capitalist movement.

And there's been continuing bad publicity for
the Corporation as a result of the McLibel case, the longest in English
history - including the collapse of McDonald's censorship attempts and
some damning legal rulings against the company: exploiting children with
their advertising strategy, deceiving consumers by claiming their food
is nutritious, promoting food linked to a greater risk of heart disease,
paying low wages and being responsible for animal cruelty.

The McLibel defendants, Helen Steel and Dave
Morris, are currently taking the British Government to the European Court
of Human Rights over oppressive and unfair UK libel laws. The historic
McLibel battle is examined in detail below...

The McLibel Support Campaign,
London

WHAT'S WRONG WITH McDONALD'S?

McDonald's spend well over $2 billion
every year worldwide on advertising and promotions, trying to cultivate
an image of being a 'caring' and 'green' company that is also a
fun place to eat. Children are lured in (dragging their parents
behind them) with the promise of toys and other gimmicks. But behind
the smiling face of Ronald McDonald lies the reality - McDonald's
only interest is money, making profits from whoever and whatever
they can, just like all multinational companies. McDonald's Annual
Reports talk of 'Global Domination' - they aim to open more and
more stores across the globe - but their continual worldwide expansion
means more uniformity, less choice and the undermining of local
communities.

PROMOTING UNHEALTHY FOOD McDonald's
promote their food as 'nutritious', but the reality is that it is
junk food - high in fat, sugar and salt, and low in fibre and vitamins.
A diet of this type is linked with a greater risk of heart disease,
cancer, diabetes and other diseases. Their food also contains many
chemical additives, some of which may cause ill-health, and hyperactivity
in children. Don't forget too that meat is the cause of the majority
of food poisoning incidents. In 1991 McDonald's were responsible
for an outbreak of food poisoning in the UK, in which people suffered
serious kidney failure. With modern intensive farming methods, other
diseases - linked to chemical residues or unnatural practices -
have become a danger to people too (such as BSE).

EXPLOITING WORKERS Workers in
the fast food industry are paid low wages. McDonald's do not pay
overtime rates even when employees work very long hours. Pressure
to keep profits high and wage costs low results in understaffing,
so staff have to work harder and faster. As a consequence, accidents
(particularly burns) are common. The majority of employees are people
who have few job options and so are forced to accept this exploitation,
and they're compelled to 'smile' too! Not surprisingly staff turnover
at McDonald's is high, making it virtually impossible to unionise
and fight for a better deal, which suits McDonald's who have always
been opposed to Unions.

ROBBING THE POOR Vast areas
of land in poor countries are used for cash crops or for cattle
ranching, or to grow grain to feed animals to be eaten in the West.
This is at the expense of local food needs. McDonald's continually
promote meat products, encouraging people to eat meat more often,
which wastes more and more food resources. 7 million tons of grain
fed to livestock produces only 1 million tons of meat and by-products.
On a plant-based diet and with land shared fairly, almost every
region could be self-sufficient in food.

DAMAGING THE ENVIRONMENT Forests
throughout the world - vital for all life - are being destroyed
at an appalling rate by multinational companies. McDonald's have
at last been forced to admit to using beef reared on ex-rainforest
land, preventing its regeneration. Also, the use of farmland by
multinationals and their suppliers forces local people to move on
to other areas and cut down further trees.

McDonald's are the world's largest
user of beef. Methane emitted by cattle reared for the beef industry
is a major contributor to the 'global warming' crisis. Modern intensive
agriculture is based on the heavy use of chemicals which are damaging
to the environment. Every year McDonald's use thousands of tons
of unnecessary packaging, most of which ends up littering our streets
or polluting the land buried in landfill sites.

MURDERING ANIMALS The menus
of the burger chains are based on the torture and murder of millions
of animals. Most are intensively farmed, with no access to fresh
air and sunshine, and no freedom of movement. Their deaths are barbaric
- 'humane slaughter' is a myth. We have the choice to eat meat or
not, but the billions of animals massacred for food each year have
no choice at all.

CENSORSHIP and McLIBEL Criticism
of McDonald's has come from a huge number of people and organisations
over a wide range of issues. In the mid-1980's, London Greenpeace
drew together many of those strands of criticism and called for
an annual World Day of Action against McDonald's. This takes place
every year on 16th October, with pickets and demonstrations all
over the world. McDonald's, who spend a fortune every year on advertising,
tried and failed to silence world-wide criticism by threatening
legal action. Many were forced to back down because they lacked
the money to fight a case. But Helen Steel and Dave Morris, two
supporters of London Greenpeace, defended themselves in a major
UK High Court libel trial. Despite all the cards being stacked against
them, denied Legal Aid and a jury trial, Helen and Dave turned the
tables and exposed the truth by putting McDonald's business practices
on trial. Some damning judgments were made against McDonald's and
protests against the $40 billion a year fast-food giant continue
to grow. It's vital to stand up to intimidation and to defend free
speech.

WHAT YOU CAN DO Together we
can fight back against the institutions and the people in power
who dominate our lives and our planet, and we can create a better
society without exploitation. Workers can and do organise together
to fight for their rights and dignity. People are increasingly aware
of the need to think seriously about the food we and our children
eat. People in poor countries are organising themselves to stand
up to multinationals and banks which dominate the world's economy.
Environmental and animal rights protests and campaigns are growing
everywhere. Why not join in the struggle for a better world. Talk
to friends and family, neighbours and workmates about these issues.
Please copy and circulate this leaflet as widely as you can.

Further information: www.mcspotlight.org

McLibel: Do-It-Yourself Justice

By Dave Morris and Helen Steel

‘The
McLibel case is the trial of the century - it concerns the most important
issues that any of us have to face, living our ordinary lives.’ [Michael
Mansfield QC]

We are the two defendants, Helen Steel and
Dave Morris, from the recent ‘McLibel’ case brought by the McDonald’s
Corporation, which resulted in the longest trial, and one of the most
controversial, in English history. We’re going to try to explain what
happened in the case from our perspective, and what it was like to be
the defendants. We will also look at and question the role of libel laws
and the legal system, and how effective opposition to oppressive laws
can develop around specific cases.

We believe that we and other campaigners were
defending the public interest up against the power and propaganda of a
highly influential multinational corporation and an oppressive and unjust
legal system.

Helen is a 36-yr old ex-barworker, now
trainee electrician. Dave is a 47 year old single parent and ex-postal
worker. We have both been community activists and anarchists in Haringey,
N. London, since the early 1980s. We were sued for libel by the McDonald’s
Corporation in 1990 for the distribution of London Greenpeace leaflets
criticising McDonald’s, the food industry and multinationals in general
for promoting unhealthy food, damaging the environment, monopolising resources,
exploiting workers, targeting and exploiting children and causing animal
suffering. [Note: London Greenpeace was the first Greenpeace group in
Europe, founded in 1971, and has always been separate from Greenpeace
International, founded in 1977. It is an open, anarchist, ecological group
which has always supported a wide range of radical, social and environmental
issues, networking with other activists and campaigns.]

None of these views were new, having already
been widely publicly expressed by trades unionists, environmentalists
and nutritionists etc for years. Positive alternatives were advocated.
These are vitally important concerns central to our everyday lives and
urgently requiring the greatest possible open public debate. Transnational
Corporations are now the most powerful institutions on our planet, dominating
our lives and the environment. McDonald’s alone currently turn over $40
billion-a-year, and spend over $2 billion annually advertising and promoting
themselves and their view of these issues world-wide. In our view it is
an outrage that any such bodies should be able to try to suppress the
public’s right to express and consider alternative points of view.

The UK libel laws

"The McLibel case has achieved what many
lawyers thought impossible; to lower further the reputation of our law
of defamation in the minds of all right thinking people"
[David Pannick, QC, The Times [UK] 20th April 1999]

Libel laws are notorious. A defendant is guilty
until proven innocent, despite facing having to pay huge potential damages
and the draconian threat to freedom of speech. Cases are massively expensive
to fight, complex and completely stacked in favour of the plaintiff.
There is no legal aid. Right to jury trial can be denied. Every published
book, programme, newspaper etc. is subjected to ‘legalling’ by lawyers
- generally almost all material which is critical of any institution or
individual who it is believed might sue is secretly removed. The
public have barely any idea of all this. Most libel suits result in a
pre-trial climbdown by the defence and a grovelling and false ‘apology’
which is then paraded around in Stalinist fashion by the victor as an
example of how squeaky clean they supposedly are. This constitutes a form
of mass censorship, carried out in secret. Its only beneficiaries are
rich and powerful institutions and individuals. It has to be asked why
such censorship has never been successfully challenged or defied before.
If not now, when?

It seems that libel developed as a means of
settling disputes between the wealthy without resorting to duelling. But
this century has seen a major shift as big business and other powerful
institutions and individuals have taken full advantage of the legal machinery
(including libel) to suppress criticism. But the public, and the many
diverse social and protest movements which have grown during this century,
place great store in their freedom to express their views. In the USA,
as a result of the 18th century victory of the american revolution against
British rule, freedom of speech was established as a constitutional right.
There have been extensive but largely unsuccessful attempts by US corporations
and others to undermine this tradition (most recently in the Oprah Winfrey
case in which one of our McLibel expert witnesses, having just returned
from testifying in London, appeared on her programme and condemned BSE-related
modern cattle-rearing practices). US corporations are increasingly making
use of other more amenable areas of the law, bringing what are known as
‘SLAPP’ suits (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation) to try
to harrass and disable their critics. International companies are now
capable of ‘window shopping’ around the world for the most favourable
arena for obtaining public legal rulings in their favour - like the UK
for example.

The whole legal system is dominated by professionals,
and is viewed by most ordinary people as an alienating, bizarre and oppressive
edifice of jargon, proceedures and hierarchy generally set up to defend
the status quo (ie those with power or money). With current government
attacks here on the right to Legal Aid and assistance, this perception
can only grow and ensure a climate where the public’s expectations and
resistance to legal injustice continue to fall.

But there are developments. Recently, as the
media has expanded and public criticism (especially of politicians) has
become increasingly hard to stifle in the modern age, the courts have
had to concede that governmental bodies should no longer be able to bring
defamation actions. In 1993 [Derbyshire vs Sunday Times] it was
ruled that the public should be able to subject such bodies to ‘uninhibited
public criticism’ without the fear of libel writs due to the ‘chilling
effect on freedom of speech’ that inevitably involves. This was a
crack in the legal door as far as we were concerned - after all, transnational
corporations are often more powerful and even less accountable than local
and national governments, and hence should also have no power to suppress
free public debate over their activities.

Meanwhile, the European Convention on Human
Rights (which is at least strong on idealistic rhetoric, if not necessarily
publicly beneficial in reality) was integrated into UK law in October
2000 - a law which has up till now refused to recognise any concept of
constitutional rights. Also
the House of Lords recently ruled in the case of former Irish PM Albert
Reynolds vs The Sunday Times that the media has a right (which should,
by extention, apply also to campaigners) to a defence of ‘qualified
privilege’ of protection from defamation actions over responsible
material reasonably believed to be true. We cited this case at our own
appeal - but let’s not jump the gun...

Back in 1990, the McDonald’s Corporation, as
the first Plaintiff in our case, would have been rightly advised that
the English courts were likely to be highly attractive...

In court - the legal battle

‘I cannot think of a case in which the legal
cards have been so spectacularly stacked against one party.’ [Legal commentator, Marcel Berlins]

We got 2 hours free legal aid - the advice
amounted to: ‘Libel is a nightmare for any defendant - with no legal aid
you’ve probably not got a cat in hell’s chance of even getting to trial,
let alone winning.’ We decided to fight, representing ourselves through
28 pre-trial hearings, some lasting up to 5 days. We were given occasional
pro-bono advice by a barrister, Keir Starmer, involved with the Haldane
Society of Socialist Lawyers. The McLibel Support Campaign was set up
to support us and to ensure the leafletting and protests grew. We were
determined to be seen as fighters rather than passive 'victims'. People
rallied round to help out in all kinds of practical ways: as witnesses;
helping with admin; giving legal advice; sending copies of press cuttings
& company documents, money and even just messages of support.

It was a nightmare being litigants in person,
and we had to learn quickly on our feet. We argued furiously, to little
avail, for full disclosure by McDonald’s of all relevant company documents.
England’s top libel judge (Justice Drake - who presided over the libel
case brought by PM John Major) was in charge of our case. As we became
more experienced and assertive our arguments with McDonald’s and the judge
increased. A new Judge, Mr Justice Bell, who had only been appointed the
year before and had never tried a libel case, was brought in instead.
At the same time McDonald’s replaced their barrister with top silk, Richard
Rampton QC. Firstly, he succeeded in having major chunks of our defence
struck out for lack of witnesses. Secondly, to our further disbelief and
shock, he successfully applied for our right to a jury trial to be denied
us on the grounds that the issue of links between diet and disease would
be ‘too complex’ for members of the public - in reality, the public are
increasingly concerned over such issues, and it was clear to us that McDonald’s
did not want to be tried by the very public they so vacuously claim to
serve. We strongly believe that a jury would have been outraged that such
a trial was ever allowed to have been brought at all, being clearly oppressive
and contrary to the public interest. Mr Rampton confidently predicted
a trial lasting ‘3-4 weeks’. We went to appeal on both points,
losing the jury issue.

But in a decision significant for all future
libel cases we succeeded in getting our full defence restored pending
full disclosure of McDonald’s documents and the coming cross-examination
of witnesses. Support and publicity began to grow, as did our own confidence.
On the eve of trial McDonald’s issued 300,000 leaflets through their UK
stores, and press releases, attacking us and other campaigners for spreading
‘lies’. Surely this was a breathtakingly hypocritical act by a
company having cried ‘libel!’, calculated to undermine our public support
when we needed it most. We countersued for libel aiming to put McDonald’s
under the burden of proving that the London Greenpeace criticisms were
untrue.

The trial finally started in June 1994, and
lasted 314 court days over 3 years (the previous longest ever libel hearing
lasted 101 days) in which we ourselves were grilling US and UK corporate
executives and officials, dozens of experts and witness of fact, fielding
our own witnesses (none of whom were paid), and also having constant legal
disputes including 4 more trips to the Court of Appeal. McDonald’s pulled
out all the stops and spent an estimated £10 million pounds as against
our total of £35,000 pounds raised from public donations. The Corporation’s
plan for a ‘3-4 week’ show trial had turned into a comprehensive
public tribunal in which ‘McWorld’ was on trial.

The administrative and advocacy workload was
huge and the proceedings alienating, exhausting and highly stressful.
We continued to get some sporadic advice on specific legal points, but
99% was down to us, working from our cramped homes and having a brief
daily ‘conference’ on the underground to the court. On top of that Helen
had her job each weekend, and Dave was a single parent of a young child.
But conversely at the same time it was greatly empowering to be members
of the public uniquely able to challenge the might and sophistication
of the corporate world face to face in the witness box - they could not
hide behind the usual slick PR department. We felt a responsibility to
ensure that the truth would be revealed, and the alternatives to corporate
practices be given a full airing. As in society at large, it really felt
like two worlds colliding. As experienced campaigners, this, and the successes
we were having, is what drove us on.

The main reason that the case took so long
is because McDonald's insisted that almost every criticism in the Factsheet
was libellous. We believe that those criticisms are common sense views
on matters of great public interest, not just directed at McDonald's but
at the food industry in general. Defending such views made the case very
wide-ranging. Most of the time McDonald's forced us, despite our complaints,
to prove the obvious - for example, that much of its packaging ends up
as litter, that diet is linked to ill-health, that their advertising to
children gets them to pester their parents to take them to McDonald's,
that animals raised for the food industry suffer cruelty, and that McDonald's
pays low wages to its workers.

The Corporation called its big guns into the
witness box. As the trial wore on they were forced under lengthy cross
examination to make damaging admissions and concessions on all the issues.

The day after the McLibel verdict, the Jonathan
Aitken libel case would fall apart after the former Government minister
would be exposed as a bare faced liar. Commentators had asked how he expected
to get away with lying in court, and answered by saying that when it came
down to the word of a former Tory minister against that of a journalist
he could safely assume, having successfully applied for trial by Judge
alone, that the courts would believe his word, particularly since as a
Plaintiff legally he didn't have to prove anything under UK libel laws.

We felt the same. Having been denied a jury,
who might not be so ready to accept the word of Corporate Executives as
true, we expected the Judge to prefer the evidence of those representing
the establishment or status quo. So from the start we adopted a strategy
of gaining admissions from McDonald's witnesses, so that it wouldn't come
down to just ‘our word against theirs’, but also ‘their word against their
own’.

A highly controversial trial

‘So how did McDonald’s end up as public
enemy number one?... McDonald’s took a serious wrong turn in bringing
the McLibel trial... this not only brought many issues about its corporate
behaviour into the public eye for the first time, it also had the effect
of making it look paranoid and power-crazy.’ [UK
Marketing, 16.9.99]

There were so many controversies. As far as
we could see it was a Kafkaesque political and legal scandal from beginning
to end by any objective criteria or by plain common sense.

For example, when the writs were served, the
‘words complained of’ - the 1986 London Greenpeace 6-sided factsheet
prophetically titled ‘What’s Wrong With McDonald’s? - Everything They
Don’t Want You To Know’ of which no more than 5,000 had been published
- were already out-of-print.But McDonald’s had made an agreement
with the main distributors of the document, Veggies, of Nottingham, accepting
their continued distribution of a version which was identical on every
issue, except rainforests, to the words complained of in the trial. We
argued this was tantamount to a generalised ‘consent’ and which
McDonald’s QC Richard Rampton had to concede amounted to ‘an accord
of satisfactions’. This guaranteed the continued public circulation
of the 95% of the allegations whatever the verdict in the trial! McDonald’s
had known the original was out of print as they had hired 7 agents to
infiltrate London Greenpeace over an 18 month period before serving the
writs. Despite this highly controversial 18 month infiltration, none of
the 5 spies who gave evidence could identify a single example of either
defendant actually distributing the document - publication is a pre-condition
of establishing libel, and the one point that McDonald’s accepted they
had the burden of proving. Even more incredibly, McDonald’s own agents
actually admitted distributing the factsheet themselves and hence McDonald’s
had published what they were trying to suppress - perfect grounds for
a second defence of ‘consent’.

Some great McQuotes McDonald's
witnesses regularly said ridiculous things in the witness box in a vain
attempt to conceal the truth or justify the way McDonald's operates and
the effect those operations have around the world.

For example, David Green, McDonald’s Senior
Vice-President of Marketing (USA), stated 'McDonald's food is nutritious'
and 'healthy'. When asked what the company meant by 'nutritious'
he said: 'provides nutrients and can be a part of a healthy balanced
diet'. He admitted this could also apply to a packet of sweets [candy].
When asked if Coca Cola is 'nutritious' he replied that it is 'providing
water, and I think that is part of a balanced diet'. He agreed that
by his definition Coke is ‘nutritious’.

When asked to define 'junk food', Professor
Wheelock, McDonald's consultant on nutrition, said it was 'whatever
a person doesn't like' (in his case semolina). With disbelief mounting
in the courtroom, Richard Rampton intervened to say that McDonald's was
not objecting to the description of their food as 'junk food'!

Incredibly, Paul Preston, McDonald's UK President,
claimed that the character Ronald McDonald is intended not to ‘sell
food’ to children, but to promote the ‘McDonald's experience’.
But an extract from the corporation's official and confidential ‘Operations
Manual' was read out:: "Ronald loves McDonald's and McDonald's
food. And so do children, because they love Ronald. Remember, children
exert a phenomenal influence when it comes to restaurant selection. This
means you should do everything you can to appeal to children's love for
Ronald and McDonald's."

McDonald's distributed 'McFact' cards
nationwide for several years publicising a scheme to recycle polystyrene
waste from stores in Nottingham, where customers were asked to put polystyrene
packaging into a separate bin, "for recycling into such things as plant
pots and coat hangers". Ed Oakley, Chief Purchasing Officer for McDonald's
UK, admitted that the company had not recycled any of the waste and in
fact the polystyrene was ‘dumped’. He later said ‘I can see
[the dumping of waste] to be a benefit, otherwise you will end up with
lots of vast, empty gravel pits all over the country.’

Paul Preston, McDonald's UK President, said
that if one million customers each bought a soft drink, he would not expect
more than ‘150 cups’ to end up as litter. Photographs were then
put to him, showing 27 pieces of McDonald's litter in one stretch of pavement
alone.

Internal company documents, mistakenly disclosed
to us (and which they asked us to return - no chance!) revealed that McDonald’s
purchased in the UK in 1983/4 beef imported from Brazil, a rainforest
country. A letter from the McDonald's Corporation to a member of the public
in the UK in 1982 stated "we can assure you that the only Brazilian
beef used by McDonald's is that purchased by the six stores located in
Brazil itself". Ed Oakley denied that the purchase of Brazilian beef
for use in the UK was in breach of McDonald's policy of not using beef
which originated outside the European Union, saying ‘No, it was not.
We still bought the hamburgers locally. We did not buy the ingredients
locally’.

Sid Nicholson, McDonald's UK Vice President,
admitted that McDonald's set their starting rates for crew employees for
most of the country ‘consistently either exactly the same as the minimum
rates of pay set by the Wages Council or just a few pence over them’.
He agreed that for crew aged 21 or over the company ‘couldn't actually
pay any lower wages without falling foul of the law’. However, he
said ‘I do not accept that McDonald's crew are low paid’. So many
weeks of testimony would have to be heard on this.

Dr Neville Gregory, McDonald's expert witness,
admitted that McDonald's egg suppliers keep chickens in battery cages,
5 chickens to a cage with less than the size of an A4 sheet of paper per
bird and with no freedom of movement and no access to fresh air or sunshine.
Ed Oakley of McDonald's said the company had thought about switching to
free range eggs, but, not only are battery eggs ‘50% cheaper’,
but, he claimed ‘hens kept in batteries are better cared for’.
He said he thought battery cages were ‘pretty comfortable’! This
is the kind of outrageous garbage we were expected to put up with, in
buckets full, and carry on. The judge in his verdict was to find Mr Oakley
‘refreshing’.

McDonald’s on the defensive
Outside court the Corporation, not noted for its coyness when it comes
to publicity, seemed strangely silent throughout the proceedings. Some
indication of its perception of what was happening can be gleaned from
a request to us - after only a couple of months of testimony - that 2
members of their US Board of Directors were ready at 24hrs notice to fly
over to secretly meet us to discuss settling the case. Overall three meetings
were held, but although the Corporation offered to pay a ‘substantial
sum’ to a mutually agreeable third party they refused to give us a guarantee
that they would not sue their critics in the future. They hoped we would
agree not to circulate the London Greenpeace factsheets, but failed to
guarantee to us that they themselves would halt all their advertising
and promotions. So it was back to court.

A further insight into Corporate thinking comes
from the notorious "Highly Confidential" 1995 memo from
McDonald’s Australia, leaked to ABC’s ‘60 mins‘ TV news programme who
were requesting an interview with them: "We could worsen the controversy
by adding our opinion"... "Contain it as a UK issue"...
"We want to keep it at arm’s length - not become guilty by association".
"Who should we not talk to? Any ABC radio or TV station Australia
wide (because they have given significant coverage to the case in a positive
perspective)".

Skeletons dragged out of McCupboards
We had a constant battle to get McDonald’s to hand over all the relevant
documents in their possession - as they should have done before the case
began, but were still being forced to do right up to the end. Just a couple
of examples - we finally persuaded the judge that employees’ clock cards
and time sheets should be disclosed to help establish whether the allegations
by our witnesses (ex-employees of McDonald’s, relying on memory) of illegal
lack of breaks - denied by McDonald’s representatives (all current managerial
grades, with easy access to company documentation) - were true. We finally
got documents from one store where there were witnesses on both sides,
for just a few weeks period, as a ‘snapshot’ on company practices in the
mid-90’s. It revealed hundreds of illegalities in those few pages alone
of the kind McDonald’s had been prosecuted for in the 1980s. In his verdict
the judge refused to discredit the store management. In fact, despite
these examples being just the tip of a large iceberg, none of McDonald’s
representatives or employees were seriously criticised by the judge in
his final verdict, unlike some of the defence witnesses.

We had a similar battle over McDonald’s beef
supply sources for their Brazil stores. Finally, when the last witness
was due to testify - defence expert Susan Brandford - we received a list
of supply points in Goias State near a tributary of the Amazon. She was
amazed to find places which she then testified had been rainforest which
she had seen being deforested in the early 1980’s to make way for cattle
ranching. It was too late to chase up the matter further, but it seemed
we’d established a key part of our case.

Legal disputes, many of them acrimonious, often
defined the parameters of what we were being forced to prove and how.
But McDonald’s had a top QC constantly bending the ear of an inexperienced
judge, with us, as two members of the public, trying to read between the
lines of his submissions, to research and understand labyrinthine laws,
and to inject common sense into the proceedings.

Maybe the last word on this should go to Mr
Justice Bell during one of the interminable arguments: ‘For better
or worse, the law of libel has grown up in its own special way over the
last 150 years, and whereas in ordinary negligence claims if you don’t
know what the law is you can say what you think is sensible and there
is a 90% chance of you being right, I am not sure the percentage isn’t
the reverse of that in the law of defamation. But there we are.’

The verdict and appeal

The courts rejected our arguments that McDonald’s
had failed to prove we published the factsheet, and that they themselves
had consented to its publication through the distribution of it by their
own agents, and through their agreement with the main distributors, Veggies.

In terms of our counterclaim, the judge ruled
that McDonald’s had issued hundreds of thousands of leaflets, and press
releases, carefully crafted by their PR firm, which were defamatory of
us two and contained serious allegations which they’d failed to justify.
‘Libellous’ you would think? ‘No’ said the judge as the poor old company
had the right to self-defence! This, and the ‘publication’ issue, are
two of the most blatant examples in the case of the incredible double
standards operating at the most fundamental legal level.

One of the major things for a jury to decide
in a libel case is the meaning of the disputed words. The areas of the
verdict which we failed to win were, we believe, mainly because the Judge
largely accepted McDonald's ludicrous and extreme meanings on most of
the issues, which we had argued the factsheet just didn't say. For example,
the factsheet repeatedly criticised the business practices of the food
industry as a whole (ie. about peoples' diets, cash crops and hunger,
damage to the environment etc) but the Judge insisted that we would have
to prove that McDonald's itself was responsible. In a serious threat
to free speech he also ruled that the accompanying satirical cartoons
and graphics should be taken into consideration. And he bizarrely and
unfairly refused our right to rely on any of the statements in the factsheet
(bar one) as 'comment' or 'opinion', ruling instead that every statement
was an allegation of fact that would have to be proven by us from primary
sources of evidence. This made the task ten times as hard, at a stroke.
Ironically, this last ruling meant that the parts found in our favour
as fact turned out therefore to be all the more devastating for McDonald’s.

Mr Justice Bell ruled that:

- McDonald's marketing has ‘pretended to
a positive nutritional benefit which their food (high in fat & salt
etc) did not match’

- that McDonald's ‘exploit children’
with their advertising strategy, ‘using them, as more susceptible subjects
of advertising, to pressurise their parents into going to McDonald’s’

- are ‘culpably responsible for animal cruelty’

- ‘pay low wages, helping to depress wages
in the catering trade’.

Despite McDonald’s technical ‘win’ over other
points, it was seen generally as a humiliating defeat for the Corporation.
No-one could recall a court delivering such critical judgments against
such a powerful institution. McDonald’s then capitulated by abandoning
all efforts to get costs, damages or even an injunction to halt the leafletting
(their primary aim - as outlined in their original Statement of Claim).
2 days after the verdict, in a Victory Celebration Day called by the McLibel
Support Campaign, over 400,000 anti-McDonald’s leaflets were defiantly
distributed outside the majority of their UK stores, and there were solidarity
protests around the world. We were elated. As experienced campaigners
we knew throughout that what really counted was the court of public opinion,
the determination of activists to refuse to be silenced and to ensure
that an oppressive law could be made unworkable by co-ordinated mass defiance.
This is what had happened in this case.

The specialist, industry press which informs
and advises corporations warned other companies not to ‘do a McLibel’.
If the McLibel example inspires future defiance could this signal the
beginning of a real fightback against censorship, or even the end for
libel laws?

Significantly McDonald's did not appeal over
the damning rulings against their core business practices, later stating
that the Judge was 'correct in his conclusions'! [McDonald's written
submissions 5.1.99]. We had failed to convince the judge on all issues
however and so we appealed, challenging his 762-page verdict on a wide
range of evidential, procedural and legal grounds specific to our case,
and over fundamental matters of libel law.

On March 31st 1999 the Court of Appeal added
to those damning findings, after an intense and gruelling 23-day hearing
in which we again represented ourselves. Lord Justices Pill, May and Keane
ruled:

- it was fair comment to say that McDonald's
employees worldwide ‘do badly in terms of pay and conditions’

- true that ‘if one eats enough McDonald's
food, one's diet may well become high in fat etc., with the very real
risk of heart disease.’

But despite these further findings the Appeal
Court only reduced Mr Justice Bell's original award of £60,000 pounds
damages to McDonald's (who'd spent an estimated £10m on the case) by £20,000.
We naturally have refused to pay a penny - it is an outrage that McDonald's
has been awarded any damages at all in the light of all the serious findings
made against the company, including those of deception and exploitation,
and the fact that no official sanctions have been taken against them.

We believe that the critics of the company
and the food industry in general were completely vindicated by the evidence.
We felt we succeeded in almost every area of the case, which is why the
majority of sub-findings of fact, if not necessarily all the final conclusions,
were in our favour.

An illustration of the irresponsible and farcical
nature of libel trials can be seen in the issues we supposedly failed
to win, eg. the central issues of nutrition and employment (which together
took up over 164 days of testimony).

Nutrition, diet and ill-health
We basically won all of this issue, although we were somehow deemed to
have lost it. Our position was identical to that of the World Health Organisation,
and we called internationally-eminent experts to testify for us. Early
on in the trial, McDonald's expert witness on cancer had been asked for
his view of the statement contained in the London Greenpeace factsheet:
"A diet high in fat, sugar, animal products and salt and low in fibre,
vitamins and minerals is linked with cancer of the breast and bowel and
heart disease". He replied: "If it is being directed to the public then
I would say it is a very reasonable thing to say." After all, we had
just shown him a virtually identical statement in one of McDonald’s own
documents! McDonald's expert witness Professor Verner Wheelock admitted
that a typical McDonald's meal was high in fat, saturated fat and sodium
content, and that cancer and heart disease were caused by a poor diet.
Paul Preston, McDonald’s UK President, admitted that McDonald's products
were low in fibre. This left almost the entire nutrition section of the
factsheet admitted by McDonald's own witnesses within a few days of the
trial starting. To escape this obvious own goal, McDonald's then proceeded
to move the goalposts by changing their claim against us and arguing that
we had to prove what seemed a more severe meaning than the one they had
originally claimed over. It was an ongoing controversy, the judge stating
and then redefining his meaning, and eventually witnesses had to be recalled.
We appealed but to no avail.

Despite the fact that during closing speeches
the judge had agreed that the actual text of the leaflet in relation to
nutrition was OK, he had ruled that satirical cartoons and graphics which
appeared on the factsheet made the overall message stronger - that it
meant there was a ‘very real risk’ of getting heart disease and
cancer from eating McDonald’s food.

Nonetheless his verdict included findings of
fact which confirm all the criticisms made. People, the Judge concluded,
'who eat McDonald's food several times a week will take the very real
risk of heart disease if they continue to do so throughout their lives,
encouraged by the Plaintiffs' advertising.' He also ruled, 'it
is possible it increases the risk to some extent' of breast cancer
and 'strongly possible that it increases the risk to some extent'
of bowel cancer.

We had effectively proved even the extreme
meaning decided on by the Judge, but the company had, in his view, been
unjustly defamed because a causal cancer link was not ‘proven’ and most
of the people the factsheet was addressed to didn't eat there often enough
to suffer the ill effects!

The Appeal Court ruled that it had ‘considerable
sympathy’ with our submissions that the leaflet meant 'that there
is a respectable (not cranky) body of medical opinion which links a junk
food diet with a risk of cancer and heart disease', that 'this
link was accepted both in literature published by McDonald's themselves
and by one or more of McDonald's own experts and in medical publications
of high repute' and that therefore 'that should have been an end
of this part of the case' . They even ruled that the judge should
not have carried out the scientific enquiry [lasting 60 days - the original
reason for the case being ‘too complex’ for a jury trial]. However, they
ruled that their hands were tied because of a previous Court of Appeal
decision on the meaning of the leaflet and so the appeal did not succeed
regarding cancer. This was despite sometimes farcical discussions during
the McLibel appeal about that meaning... Lord Justice Pill: ‘The Defendants
do not believe it. The judge himself did not believe it. You [Richard
Rampton QC] do not believe it. And we are stuck with it.’... Rampton:
‘What does the meaning mean? The meaning means, I would say, just what
it says.’ Mr Justice Keane: ‘..are you not opening up...this particular
can of worms as to what actually does the Court of Appeal’s approved meaning
mean?’ [!!]

Employment
We also won virtually all this issue (see the verdicts above), with only
a semantic dispute over one phrase remaining. Although the trial Judge
found as a fact that ‘[McDonald's] are strongly antipathetic to any
idea of unionisation of crew in their restaurants' and that ‘There
have been occasions where McDonald's crew have lost their jobs or been
victimised for union activity’ the Court of Appeal upheld the judge’s
ruling that we had libelled McDonald's because we had failed to prove
that 'McDonald's have a policy of preventing unionisation by getting
rid of pro-Union workers'.

But McDonald's UK Vice President and former
Head of Personnel Sid Nicholson had testified as far back as day 120 of
the trial and at the beginning of the evidence on this issue. After strenuous
cross-examination from us, and much beating around the bush from
the executive, the judge put it to him and he agreed that employees ‘would
not be allowed to carry out any overt union activity on McDonald's premises’.
Mr Justice Bell turned to us and said: ‘Can you do better than that?’.
We didn’t think we needed to - it seemed to be in the bag. After all,
Mr Nicholson had just admitted that 'to inform the Union about conditions
inside the stores' would be a breach of the employee's contract (Crew
Handbook), 'gross misconduct' and a 'summary sackable offence'.
If that's not a ‘policy' then what is? Indeed, this being in the company
contract of employment, it seemed much more extensive and systematic discrimination
against every employee, not just those involved in unionisation efforts,
and - we argued - clearly illegal under Trade Union discrimination laws.

Both the trial judge and the Appeal court pointedly
ignored our detailed submissions that this was illegal and refused to
rule on it. We believe that the courts felt it was their job to protect
the interests of a major employer, and that this would have been one ruling
too far they were being forced to make.

The appeal judges did rule that 100 days of
evidence on employment conditions was too much. It certainly felt like
that to us, especially as a member of the Corporation’s Board of Directors
had admitted enough by Day 4 for our case on this issue to have been justified
as proven or fair comment.

Other issues Packaging and waste Despite a great deal of evidence on
the environmentally damaging effects of the production and disposal of
mountains of McDonald’s disposable packaging, the Appeal Court upheld
the finding by the trial Judge that most of this evidence was not relevant,
and that McDonald's had been libelled because the leaflets said they used
only a 'tiny' amount of recycled paper, whereas he found that it
was a 'small but nevertheless significant proportion' ! He also
agreed with McDonald’s that it was their customers who were the ones responsible
for causing litter!

Tropical forests Mr Justice Bell
had accepted that ‘the expansion of beef cattle production has...led
to the destruction of areas of rainforest’ in Costa Rica, Brazil and
Guatemala, and that McDonald’s is the world’s largest promoter and user
of beef, and has in those countries used beef from ex-rainforest land.
But the Appeal Court upheld his narrow and semantic interpretation of
the meaning of this section of the Factsheet - that we had to prove McDonald’s
itself had been involved more directly, and in the destruction
of only a specific type of ‘luxuriant, broadleaved, evergreen, very
wet, canopy’ tropical forest. He therefore discarded any evidence
about damage to tropical forests in general. He also chose to over-rule
the opinions of the only experts on this issue (called by the defence).
So we were unsuccessful.

Food safety Although the judge
had agreed that, taken literally, the text of this section of the factsheet
which criticised modern factory farming methods could be viewed as 'inoffensive',
he ruled that its context (an anti McDonald's leaflet) meant that it's
real meaning was to accuse McDonald's of subjecting their customers to
'a serious risk of food poisoning'. So we didn't succeed, despite
Justice Bell finding that we 'were able to establish some incidents
of food poisoning attributable to eating McDonald's food', including
2 serious Ecoli O157 outbreaks; that salmonella was present in '25%
of the pieces of deboned [chicken] meat' supplied to McDonald's, and
campylobacter on 70%; and that the risk of undercooking (thorough cooking
is the only effective defence against food poisoning) 'is endemic in
the fast food system'.

To summarise, we won outright the sections
on Advertising, Animals, effectively all of Nutrition and Employment short
of a part of the final conclusion in each, but didn’t succeed on Environment
and Food Safety despite overwhelming evidence.

Conclusions

There’s no doubt that the McLibel trial became
a unique and historic public tribunal of enquiry into many aspects of
the food industry and modern Corporations - despite all the odds being
stacked completely against those representing the public interest.

We have outlined just some of the controversies
that demonstrate how the legal establishment strained every fibre to protect
a major player in the economic establishment, despite the company’s completely
untenable position in trying to suppress widespread public criticisms.

There have been no sanctions at all against
McDonald’s as a result of this case. Despite the admissions by McDonald's
and findings by the court that several of the statements which the Corporation
sued over in the factsheet were known by them to be true, as were practices
which they had originally denied took place, the courts failed to impose
any sanctions on the company for bringing legal proceedings under false
pretences. Recent reviews and statutory changes to the law of defamation
pointedly refused to look at any of the fundamental issues such as those
raised here, and failed to do more than tinker with streamlining procedures.
Libel laws remain as unfair, oppressive and unacceptable as always.

Effectively the courts have given the green
light to companies to abuse the legal system without any risk of paying
consequences. It is only the actions of campaigners and witnesses in ensuring
that the truth came out during the trial, and was widely publicised, and
the international grass-roots campaign of mass defiance and solidarity,
that has created a deterrent to companies from taking similar legal action
in the future - and given encouragement to the public to openly voice
their concerns about present day issues without fear.

Overall the one thing the trial and the rulings
have shown is how inappropriate it is for the legal system to be deciding
what people can and can’t say, and what is deemed to be ‘true’ or ‘untrue’.
There are many different political viewpoints, inevitable conflicts between
those who hold the power in society and those who seek to expose and resist
such rule. It is vital for the future of this planet and its population
that these subjects are areas of free uninhibited debate and ordinary
people can express their views, so the self-interested propaganda of greedy
multinationals and their ruthless drive for profits can be widely challenged.

The case goes on...and on...

In 1999 we lodged a 43-point Petition applying
for leave to appeal to the House of Lords. It was rejected and so in September
2000 we launched a case taking the British Government to the European
Court of Human Rights.

We are seeking to defend the public's right
to criticise companies whose business practices affect people's lives,
health and environment, arguing that multinational corporations should
no longer be able to sue for libel.

In an important legal judgment, the UK Appeal
judges had ruled in favour of our submissions that publicity produced
by campaigning groups should be able, in limited circumstances, to have
the legal protection of ‘Qualified Privilege’ which is now beginning to
be conceded to the media in order to protect the publisher from having
to prove the criticisms made. However, they implied that authoritative
references should be included within such publicity material - this is
discrimination against the distribution of ‘populist’ leaflets rather
than academic or highly-detailed material.

We also seek an end to unfair and oppressive
defamation laws and procedures, as highlighted by our own case.

Most importantly for McDonald's we are seeking
leave to argue that, having won the bulk of the issues in dispute with
the fast-food corporation, we should have won the case outright - McDonalds’
reputation has been so damaged by the findings against them that the remaining
matters not proven have no material affect.

The legal battle with McDonald’s has been
largely won, but the struggle against oppressive laws continues.

Inevitably in a battle like this there are
opportunities for spin offs. For example we successfully sued the Metropolitan
Police for unlawfully passing on information about us to McDonald’s and
their infiltrators.

Also a campaign was launched to demand that
all McDonald’s TV advertising to children be halted in the light of the
verdict that they ‘exploit children’ through pester power - in
direct contravention of statutory advertising rules. In Sweden, all advertising
to under 12 year olds is banned - so why not UK and worldwide?

Outside Court - the campaign

‘Observers believe it will go down as the
biggest Corporate PR disaster in history.’
[UK Channel 4 News]

McDonald’s brought the case to suppress the
dissemination (at that time in the thousands) of London Greenpeace anti-McDonald’s
leaflets. However, 3 million leaflets have been handed out on the streets
in the UK alone since the writs were served on us, and there have been
over a million more handed out in solidarity protests all over the world.
This resounding victory is due to the determination of campaigners. The
McLibel Support Campaign had been set up to galvanise the great public
interest and support, and to help with legal finances and practical tasks...
but most importantly to back the grass-roots leafletters, thousands of
whom signed a Pledge to continue to disseminate leaflets before, during
and after the trial in defiance of the law.

Despite the campaign being run on half a shoe-string
from an office in someone’s bedroom, it succeeded in ensuring that the
private and often obscure legal battle in the courtroom became a public
issue fought and won in the court of public opinion and on the street.
Regular supporters' mailouts, hundreds of e-mailings and numerous international
'Days of Action' were organised to ensure the public got to hear about
the issues. Although the media (establishment and alternative) were consistently
contacted and given reports of what was going on, the capitalist media
largely trivialised or ignored the case, focussing on the 'human story'
rather than the real issues. The campaign, with varying success, also
made links with residents' associations opposing plans for new McDonald's
stores, gave encouragement to kids wanting to circulate anti-Ronald leaflets,
and made contacts with disgruntled employees. In addition, an Internet
site, ‘McSpotlight’, was launched in 1996 by volunteers, enabling campaigners,
researchers, journalists and interested people world-wide to have immediate
free access to anti-McDonald’s leaflets (and the translations), full daily
trial transcripts, legal arguments and judgements, documentation about
the company, press coverage, previously censored material, ongoing debate
sections and so on. It is probably the most comprehensive and publicly
accessible documentation of a company or legal case in existence. It had
been accessed over 85 million times in its first 4 years. McDonald’s,
despite being probably the most sophisticated and successful propaganda
organisation in the world, was forced onto the defensive and it effectively
buried its head in the sand on the issue.

People often wonder just how we managed to
have the strength to battle away and achieve what we did. Both of us and
also London Greenpeace, had the long experience of involvement in a wide
range of inspiring campaigns, struggles and movements of ordinary people
against the odds. We also have no illusions which could have led to disillusionment
- we are anarchists who want to see the end of the exploitation of people,
animals and the environment in order to create a new society where people
have control over their own lives and communities. We know this is likely
to be a life-long struggle.

A real DIY victory with far-reaching implications

McLibel echoes other recent campaigns and movements
defying legal suppression - e.g. free speech campaigns, struggles for
the basic rights to organise and demonstrate, or even for the right to
party, widespread illegal soft-drugs use, the mass public non-cooperation
of 18 million people in the UK not paying the Poll Tax, the traditions
of direct actions and protests (eg. for the sake of the environment and
animal rights), occupations of unused empty homes, buildings and land,
and of course the continuous struggles of workers and the labour movement
up against employers and increasingly the courts.

Campaigns of this type raise important and
exciting questions:

- In what ways can courts be transformed into
arenas around which public debate and struggles can be stimulated and
mobilised?

- Are ‘natural justice’ and ‘civil society’
much stronger than people realise? How can the decisions and rulings of
supposedly powerful legal, state and corporate institutions be rendered
powerless?

- How can grass-roots movements, backed by
public support, realise their potential to really take on, undermine and
eventually abolish those institutions which currently dominate and oppress
the public?

What can people do to advance justice?

The control of the wealth and decision-making
in modern capitalist society is in the hands of a ruling class of company
directors, controllers of financial institutions, politicians, property
and land owners, military strategists etc, and not in the hands of ordinary
people in their workplaces and their communities. It inevitably follows
that many areas of the legal system are used as a means of control over
the public in our everyday lives, especially if we act individually or
collectively to challenge the powers-that-be. Considering that social
inequalities and controls, and conflict and environmental destruction
are serious and growing problems, then public discontent and opposition
is bound to increase likewise - and therefore the Authorities’ use of
the legal machinery will also increase to try and keep the public quiet.

To achieve real justice and a decent life for
our children and future generations, we need to encourage and empower
each other to articulate our own needs and rights, to understand how society
is really functioning and in whose vested interests, and to be able to
take practical steps to fight for our own interests individually and collectively
with others (including inside or against the legal system). Everyone can
get organised where we live and work, join campaigning groups and movements,
and generally join in the struggle for a better world.

We need to create a new society by taking direct
control of our lives, workplaces, streets, neighbourhoods and land. Together
ordinary people can reclaim our world, currently based on the greed and
power of a minority, and create an anarchist society based on strong and
free communities, the sharing of precious resources and respect for all
life.